Impressive Start For Kennedy

Impressive Start For Kennedy

If you watched Ian Kennedy in his start the other day vs the Indians you were probably not very comfortable watching; I know I wasn't. I couldn't quite figure out why I was so squirmy, so I went to MLB.com and looked through his pitch-by-pitch - what I found was quite amazing and additional reason for optimism.

What made the start feel uncomfortable was the fact that Ian could not throw any of his secondary pitches for a called strike. When he did throw a curve or change the pitch was either a ball, or the batter made contact with it.

Of his 105 pitches, Kennedy threw 80 fastballs and 25 off speed pitches. Among the 25 off speed pitches there were 3 foul balls, 1 base hit and 3 ground outs. Of the remaining eighteen, sixteen (or 65%) were called balls...only 2 were either a called or swinging strike. TWO!

As a very good hitting team, the Indians had only to ignore everything but the fastball and they were a safe bet not to be burned.

There are 2 things we can take away from this data: 1. Kennedy needs to do a better job with his curve and change up, but more importantly 2. Even at 89-91, Kennedy's fastball is an exceptional pitch that can get big league hitters out even when they know it's coming.

I'm very confident that we will see Ikky able to get much more production from his curve and change than he did vs the Indians. Once he does the stud we all know he is will emerge.